La vita è bella

Musings on life, death and poetry.

The morgue in three words: stomach-turning, confronting, morbid in every sense of the word.

It really takes a special kind of person to become a forensic pathologist. The doctor leading the tutorial had a chilling, eerily hyperhappy sense of humour, like he's trying to compensate for the nature of his profession.

As I enter the dissecting room; gowned, gloved, masked and nervous as hell, I take in the sight of 10 dead bodies in various states of disembowelment and remind myself that I've seen surgeries and zombie horror movies, I can deal with guts - no problemo. I'm going to be fine.

We're taken to our 'patient', fresh out of the body bag. He is lying face up, eyes closed and still completely dressed from head to toe. If I didn't know better, he could've been dreaming away in a deep coma.

The body is open in record-time. Scalpel, slice, slice; the industrial strength hedge-cutters are out for the ribcage; the innards are removed in one piece from lung-to-bowel; he was scalped (face-off) to access the skull for extraction of the brain. All senses were being assaulted simultaneously. The visual horror, the eerie knocking and banging of powertools, the putrid, pungent, gag-inducing SMELL of rotting flesh, overwhelming to say the least. I cannot believe the doc was doing it without a mask, cutting away, picking up undigested gastric contents - joking about whether it was pineapple or pumpkin - seriously!?? (he also told us to lighten up after seeing the disgust in our eyes).

It was such a surreal, unnerving experience.

Needless to say, I bailed at the earliest possible moment for an afternoon of Newtown therapy, exactly what I needed to clear my mind. Window-shopping and thai with beautiful company :) Spent forever scouring Goulds for a book that didn't want to be found, ended up buying the brand-spanking new version a couple of bookstores later. Wrapped up the afternoon with an earl grey, raspberry cheesecake and poetry reading. La vita e bella!

Currently
Reading: Los versos del Capitan by Pablo Neruda.
Listening: About today by The National

Your Laughter

Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.

Do not take away the rose,
the lance flower that you pluck,
the water that suddenly
bursts forth in joy,
the sudden wave
of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.

My love, in the darkest
hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the stones of the street,
laugh, because your laughter
will be for my hands
like a fresh sword.

Next to the sea in the autumn,
your laughter must raise
its foamy cascade,
and in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for,
the blue flower, the rose
of my echoing country.

Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,
but when I open
my eyes and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die.